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Night driving became a huge struggle for me around age 31.
It was my first reason for improving my vision and investing in vision therapy.
I am happy to say that over the last 3 years my night time driving has improved tremendously. Even when I’m suppressing and only using one eye, it is still so much better because I have learned to follow some basic principles that make a big difference.
For my course "Mastering Peripheral," go to https://learn.strabismussolutions.com/mastering-peripheral-vision
For help finding a vision therapy office go to https://strabismussolutions.com/findvt/
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0:00
hi my name is Melissa Daniels and I have strabismus strabismus is when your eyes do not point in the
0:09
same direction like this I also have something called amblyopia or lazy eye which is that this
0:16
eye even with the best glasses doesn't have perfect vision and it never can because there's
0:22
a neurological problem. Now, a common struggle for those of us that have these problems
0:29
amblyopia, lazy eye, strabismus, whatever you have, we struggle with driving at night
0:36
This was actually the main thing that made me look into fixing my eyes with vision therapy
0:42
and surgery because I couldn't drive at night anymore. In this video, I'm going to give you
0:47
five strategies that you can implement today that will help improve your night driving tremendously
0:54
So the first question to ask is why do we struggle? There's two main deficits that we have
1:01
that make driving at night a real struggle for people with strabismus. First, a lack of depth
1:06
perception. We have some depth perception, but it's not awesome. And also a lack of peripheral
1:12
vision and we have peripheral vision but again it's usually not very good and between these two
1:19
things we really struggle with driving at night now improving your depth perception is can be like
1:27
a lifelong work it can require vision therapy surgery so much work and I have been doing that
1:33
and it's amazing and I highly recommend that you can go to strabismusolutions.com findvt and I'll
1:41
help you find a vision therapy office but that is going to take a little bit longer to get results
1:46
improving your peripheral vision is something that you can do right now on your own that can
1:54
start improving your night driving now and so while I do recommend the vision therapy I want
1:59
to give you some strategies that you can use right now now peripheral vision is so important
2:04
it you may might think like oh yeah I have peripheral vision I can see you know my hand
2:09
over here or whatever, but I promise it could be so much better. It is one of the biggest gains
2:17
that I've made in vision therapy that has made the biggest difference for me. And I actually
2:21
created a course called Mastering Peripheral that basically takes everything I've learned in the
2:26
last four years in vision therapy about peripheral vision, and I've put it all into a course so that
2:31
you can become a master. And I highly recommend that too. That's at learn.strabismissolutions.com
2:37
But again, I wanna give you some strategies that you can use right now
2:41
So I'm gonna take five things that you're probably doing right now
2:45
that are sabotaging your night driving, and I'm gonna give you five things to replace them with
2:51
so that you can feel more comfortable driving at night. The first thing that you are probably doing right now is staring at oncoming headlights You can help it Our eyes are drawn to light and we want to go stare at those lights
3:05
and then you don't know where you are and then all of a sudden you're swerving and pulling off the road and it's really dangerous
3:11
So, when you feel that need to stare at oncoming headlights, I want you to expand what you're seeing
3:19
So you're gonna expand your peripheral and it might be as simple as
3:24
instead of just looking at one car's headlights, can you see multiple cars headlights all at the same time
3:30
instead of just focusing on one car? Can you expand what you're seeing
3:33
to include other headlights? Once you get to that point, you can also expand to see maybe even like light from the sky
3:42
whether it's like stars or the moon or maybe like the reflection off the road on the lines
3:48
It could be streetlights, house lights, different, any other. notice all the light that is happening instead of hyper focusing on that one headlight
3:59
try to notice more lights all around and and tell your brain look there's a lot of light to look at
4:07
and the more you can open and expand what you're seeing the easier it will be to drive at night you
4:12
will have such a better sense of where you are in that space if you're looking at the whole space
4:16
It's all as one big area instead of one little item in the space
4:23
So that's my first thing. Don't stare at those oncoming lights unless you're going to look at all of them at the same time
4:29
Second thing you're probably doing is getting really nervous, right? I've had this happen
4:36
It starts raining or there's traffic and it's dark and there's not good lighting with street lamps
4:43
And you start squinting and holding your breath. like this. And then you think that's going to help you drive better. And you might be doing
4:51
this subconsciously, right? Of course, if you were to like think through things, you'd be like
4:56
of course, that's not a good idea. But I want you to notice, am I squinting my eyes and am I holding
5:02
my breath? And just opening your eyes, relaxing your eyes and blinking. Try to consciously blink
5:10
more often and breathe. Those things will completely relax your body and actually help you
5:17
open your eyes to see better, to see more clearly, to take in what's happening in the dark. It'll
5:23
help those rods in your eyes take in what they're seeing and your whole visual system will work
5:31
better. If you're getting your oxygen and you're opening your eyes and blinking, right? Just take
5:35
Take care of those basic eye health needs. That'll make a big difference
5:40
Okay, third. I hear a lot of people that are like, I don't want to stare at the oncoming headlight
5:46
I just stare at this, the line on the side of the road
5:50
And then I'm not looking at those oncoming headlights. And I hear this all the time and I used to do this
5:55
This is how I would drive When there an oncoming car and I knew the oncoming lights were gonna blind me I would just stare at this sideline and it not a bad idea if someone has their brights on or something like that you really don
6:06
want to be staring directly into that but instead of just staring at the line
6:11
right next to your car I want you to change the way you're thinking about that
6:14
and try to see the whole line like extending far far far down the road
6:20
right you're not gonna be able to see it forever because it is dark outside but
6:24
try to change the way that instead of like, oh, I got to look to the side at this line
6:29
just be like, I wonder how long this line goes. And can I see the middle line at the same time
6:34
Again, this is all about expanding your peripheral. It's interesting to me that in your eye
6:40
the cones are responsible for your central vision and the rods are responsible for your peripheral
6:46
vision and your night vision. And I don't think that it is by chance. And I'm not an optometrist
6:53
or a scientist, I really don't know how all of that works together. But what I do know is when
6:59
I expand my peripheral, I can see it at night much, much, much, much, much better. So instead of just
7:05
looking at the line right here, maybe watch for the dotted lines in the middle of the road
7:09
and the line on the side and kind of keep both of those and expand so that you can see them all the
7:15
way out in front of you. So again, it's all about trying to see more at one time. And it's not all
7:21
with your central vision, right? Your central vision might be looking right to the side
7:25
but I want you to make sure you're opening your peripheral to take in more at the same time
7:31
The next one is just about your brain, okay? I can't help but incorporate this
7:37
because it's so important. Do not think to yourself, I can't drive at night
7:43
I have found myself in the car, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this
7:47
and I'm getting nervous and I'm squinting and I'm not breathing and I'm like, staring at something really small, right
7:53
Like that is not gonna help you drive. You need to change from I can't do this to I was made for this
8:00
My eyes were made to see in the dark. I was meant to be a hunter-gatherer in the dark
8:05
running around, finding animals. I can do this. I can see at night
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My brain knows how to adapt and it's going to learn and I'm gonna help it learn how to do this better
8:14
But even just telling yourself I was made for this instead of I can't do this is again going to relax
8:20
your whole visual system and your brain and make your vision better. I promise that is one of the
8:27
things that makes the biggest difference, ironically enough. Okay. And then the last
8:32
kind of a lot of times I know when you're driving at night and you're nervous, you might hyper focus
8:40
on one thing, whether that's, you know, oncoming headlights or the side of the road or the car in
8:45
in front of you or just you're like really looking small, you're only looking at one little small area
8:53
And it totally normal right But it not helpful it not gonna help you be a better driver at night So something that you can do to help you keep that peripheral I mean I given you a few strategies already to expand what you seeing to see what in front of you into the sides
9:10
One thing that has really helped me is looking for apparent motion. And so this is kind of like
9:15
the idea of motion parallax. I want you to look if I don't know where you live. So there's going
9:21
to be different things on the side of your road. Might be buildings or trees, fences, could be a
9:27
telephone pole, right? I want you to watch for those things. And I know it's dark outside and
9:32
you won't be able to see them perfectly. It might be just a shadow or something that you can kind of
9:38
tell is a little darker and lighter. That might be all that you can see in your peripheral
9:44
But I want you to watch for the way it moves past you. As you're moving forward, there's this
9:49
apparent motion that everything else is moving the opposite direction and if you are able to keep
9:55
your peripheral looking for that emotion it'll really help you expand what you're seeing and
10:01
then like I was saying in the beginning instead of staring at headlights you are expanding and
10:07
seeing so much more and then you know where you're at in that space and you are able to control where
10:13
your car is and lane control and tell where you are and judge distances if you are taking in more
10:19
of that space at the same time, you will be able to interact in that space so much better
10:24
So those are your five strategies. If you want to get even better at peripheral vision and really
10:30
hit it hard and work on expanding your peripheral in a lot of different ways, I have my amazing
10:35
course, Mastering Peripheral at learn.strabismissolutions.com. There are, I'll teach you five different techniques that will help you improve your peripheral vision. And then there
10:45
our 10 different exercises and also included our five live webinars that I did all about these
10:52
different techniques and challenges to improve in your daily life. So it's awesome. I put tons of
10:59
work into it. I know it's going to be helpful for you. If you want to get into vision therapy and
11:05
you want to get, find some results that, you know, get that depth perception even stronger
11:10
than just expanding peripheral vision therapy is going to need to be part of your journey
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and I will help you find a vision therapy office for free
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All you have to do is go to strabismusolutions.com slash findvt. You fill out a form and then give me your location
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and within a week or so, I will email you back some different vision therapy offices
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that would be either close to you or virtual if you live somewhere where there's no vision therapy
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And I do that all for free because I want people to gain what I've gained
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It is so incredible. So good luck with everything. I hope that these tips work for you
11:49
and that you are able to feel more comfortable when you drive at night. And I will see you in the next video
#Vision Care
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Laser Vision Correction